bookheaven | Komi Can’t Communicate, Vol. 1

Komi Can’t Communicate, Vol. 1 (Komi Can't Communicate, #1)

Komi Can’t Communicate, Vol. 1 by Tomohito Oda

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Sometimes with YA stuff you're all in and other times, as a much older reader, you think 'I'm too old for this.' Komi fits into that for me because I don't see Komi as comedic. I see all the ways every adult in her life has absolutely failed her.

Tadano is the new guy to campus when he runs across Komi who is the aloof icy princess of the school and learns her secret, she has such severe social anxiety she basically has mutism. She wants to make friends (a hundred to be exact) and he decides to help her do this.

I find it highly unlikely the girl who can't speak at all would be elevated to queen of the school (the strange and awkward usually face a much different fate) but let's buy into that for now. No one at this school or any of the ones leading to it (as there is at least one student who has known her since grade school) has noticed Komi can't communicate. Every single teacher has made excuses for her, have acted like her silence is an answer and actually changes their approach as if Komi had rebuffed them and they must do better. I ended up feeling sorry for Komi because literally no one is helping her.

And this is super light on plot. That's not always a bad thing but almost means it wasn't that interesting. Tadano does the heavy lifting in story telling. The one nice thing is the other students are protective of Komi but often go too far into creepy territory with how they threaten Tadano for daring to breathe Komi's air.

He enlists someone he used to know Najimi and while a social butterfly Najimi is a bit problematic with their non-binary status being played for laughs with the what gender are they now thing. The next friend Himiko Agari is just as problematic with her glasses and 'chubby' body being played for nerdy laughs (also she's drawn slender AF but we don't really get into her body issues as she's not the main character) but even more problematic is she wants to be Komi's 'dog' and acts accordingly. Sigh.

So this really isn't for me. The art is very nice though and you can't argue with the success of the manga so I'm obviously a minority here.

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